LightSail Project: Bill Nye tests a spaceship that rides on sunbeams

American science educator and TV host Bill Nye is testing a spaceship that rides on sunbeams.

The privately funded LightSail project currently headed by Nye is the creation of The Planetary Society and aims to offer a demonstration of the potential of solar sailing as a faster and cheaper method of space propulsion than chemical rockets with two small spacecraft built by Stellar Exploration Inc., the Verge reported.

For its test flight, the LightSail will be riding an Atlas V rocket into the upper reaches of the atmosphere, a vehicle provided by Boeing and Lockheed Martin's joint space venture, United Launch Alliance and the final version of the craft will be ensconced inside another satellite, called Prox-1, and carried into space by SpaceX's Falcon Heavy rocket.

Back in 1976, famed physicist and astronomer Carl Sagan appeared on The Tonight Show to explain a new method of space travel using a technique called solar sailing.

A second LightSail mission will be launched in April next year if all goes as planned, that will aim to demonstrate how future spaceships could use the propulsion technique to get around in our solar system without the need for bulky boosters or vast reserves of fuel that drive up the price of projects. 

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